Soccer: Valencia's Marcelino asks for fan help to shut out tie with Villarreal

VALENCIA (Reuters) – Valencia coach Marcelino urged their supporters to keep away from complacency and fill the Mestalla stadium for his aspect’s Europa League quarter-final second leg in opposition to fellow Spaniards Villarreal despite the fact that they maintain a Three-1 lead within the tie.

“The staff want the help and the assistance of the followers, now we have a Europa League semi-final inside our grasp and we’re going to have tough moments,” Marcelino informed a information convention forward of Thursday’s recreation.

“We’re going to need to dig deep, the groups are very even and we’ll must make an enormous effort so I hope there are heaps of individuals supporting our gamers from the primary minute till the final.”

He added: “We have now the tie in our fingers with a end result we might all have signed up for earlier than, but when we concede first we may begin to doubt ourselves, so now we have to forestall that from occurring in any respect prices.”

Marcelino mentioned he anticipated captain Dani Parejo to return from a muscle downside however that ahead Rodrigo Moreno, defender Cristiano Piccini and goalkeeper Jaume Domenech had been unavailable, together with French midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia.

But even after warning that the tie was not over, he mentioned he would rotate his aspect in opposition to Villarreal to make sure his gamers don’t undergo from fatigue within the last phases of the season.

In the meantime, Jose Gaya, Goncalo Guedes, Francis Coquelin and Mouctar Diakhaby are all one yellow card away from being suspended within the semi-final first leg, the place Valencia would face Napoli or Arsenal ought to they progress.

“We’re going to maintain on rotating gamers, we will’t play each recreation with the identical gamers, we’ll attempt to use everybody accessible on this last stretch,” he mentioned.

“We’ll attempt to verify we don’t have any extra issues and don’t get any gamers suspended, however we’ll need to see what we resolve as a result of we have already got numerous gamers with knocks, gamers who’re drained and daily one thing new occurs.”

Villarreal coach Javi Calleja admitted his aspect had an almighty activity in entrance of them after their first-leg defeat, however recalled that his staff have taken factors from the likes of Actual Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid this season.

“We all know it’s a heavy scoreline and it’s tough however not unimaginable,” he mentioned.

“So long as there’s a likelihood we’re going to combat to attempt to pull off the feat. We have now a adequate staff to strike concern into them and now we have proved this 12 months that we will rating objectives and trigger issues for any aspect.”